Synthesis of compounds structurally related to oxamic acid will be undertaken and these compounds will be tested as inhibitors of lactate dehydrogenase. The purpose of this work is: a) to determine whether a long chain charged analog of oxamate can interact with any charged group other than those involved directly in substrate binding and thus to map the region of the active center of the enzyme and b) to determine whether compounds more effective than oxamate as tumor antimetabolites can be found. The other phase of this project is to determine whether the kinetic behavior of the lactate dehydrogenase in the presence of dead-end and substrate inhibitors can be used to calculate the equilibrium constants for the various steps in the reaction sequence. In theory this is possible. It remains to be seen whether theory can be reduced to practice.